Her 60-year reign began amid gloomy post-World War II austerity, but Queen Elizabeth II has seen social and technological changes transform the world from her seat on Britain’s throne. From a man setting foot on the moon to the fall of Soviet Union, the queen has witnessed dramatic world events, and withstood the challenges posed to her sometimes troublesome family.

Queen Elizabeth II’s reign: 60 years of milestones

SAYING she was touched and humbled by “countless kindnesses” shown to her, Queen Elizabeth II wound up a spectacular and closely scripted four-day celebration of her 60 years as monarch Tuesday, seeming buoyed by an outpouring of support that is likely to cement her family’s place in British society for years to come.

The queen, who is 86, completed the extravaganza with an address broadcast to the nation.

“The events that I have attended to mark my diamond jubilee have been a humbling experience,” she said in the address, which lasted less than two minutes. “It has touched me deeply to see so many thousands of families, neighbors and friends celebrating together in such a happy atmosphere.”

She added: “I hope that the memories of all this year’s happy events will brighten our lives for many years to come. I will continue to treasure and draw inspiration from the countless kindnesses shown to me in this country and throughout the Commonwealth,” she said, referring to the association of nations with historical links to Britain (mainly former colonies) that she formally heads.

The celebrations, with public holidays giving Britons a four-day break, included a dramatic pageant of 1,000 vessels on the River Thames through London on Sunday, a concert outside Buckingham Palace on Monday and a day of reverence and pageantry Tuesday.

The only departure from the tight choreography of the events was the illness of Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth’s 90-year-old husband, who was taken to a hospital Monday after spending hours in the biting cold atop the royal barge during the Thames procession June 3.

In Prince Philip’s absence, the queen attended events alone or with other close family members. Riding in an open carriage through central London on Tuesday with crowds lining the streets, she was accompanied by her eldest son and heir, Prince Charles, and his second wife, Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall. The prince’s sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, followed in another open carriage with Prince William’s wife, the former Kate Middleton, now the Duchess of Cambridge.

In the finale to the jubilee, hundreds of thousands of people crammed the Mall, the broad avenue leading from Trafalgar Square to Buckingham Palace, lofting British union flags and bright umbrellas against a spattering of rain, to await the queen’s appearance on the palace’s central balcony. For a better view, one held up a cardboard periscope emblazoned with the words “Thanks for the day off.”

Much of the official praise for the queen has cited what has been described as her dedication to public service.

In a sermon that she attended Tuesday at St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, inveighed against “the traps of ludicrous financial greed, of environmental recklessness, of collective fear of strangers and collective contempt for the unsuccessful and marginal.”

But referring to the queen, he said: “We are marking today the anniversary of one historic and very public act of dedication — a dedication that has endured faithfully, calmly and generously through most of the adult lives of most of us here. We are marking six decades of living proof that public service is possible, and that it is a place where happiness can be found.”

Born April 21, 1926, the queen has seen the British Empire transformed from a pre-eminent world power into a commonwealth of 54 independent states, of which she is the figurehead. She is also the queen of 16 realms, including the United Kingdom, and a nominal leader of 2 billion subjects, nearly a third of the world’s population.

Considered friendly and funny in private, the queen has a formal, remote air in public that some people attribute to shyness and others say is a reflection of her belief that, as monarch, she should comport herself with dignity and restraint.

Growing up, Elizabeth was tutored privately. She fell in love with her future consort, Prince Philip, when she was 13 and married him eight years later. They have four children and eight grandchildren.

Then aged 25, Princess Elizabeth became queen when she was told of the death of her father, King George VI, on Feb. 6, 1952, while staying at the Treetops Hotel in Kenya.

Queen Elizabeth II was crowned in a solemn ceremony June 2, 1953, at London’s Westminster Abbey. Crowds lined up across London to see the queen travel to and from the ceremony, while an estimated 20 million watched on television, after the new monarch requested the event be broadcast as the first televised coronation.

It was the first of many royal spectacles that have marked her reign, including the so-called “fairy tale’’ marriage of her son Charles to Princess Diana, the messy family spats that surrounded their divorce and an outpouring of public disapproval against the queen after Diana’s death.

As Britain shook off the era of wartime austerity and strict social codes during the 1960s — the decade of swinging London, the Beatles and a lifestyle revolution — the queen brought change to the monarchy. In 1969, she authorized the first television documentary about her life, which featured unguarded footage of the Duke of Edinburgh cooking sausages on a barbeque and the queen chatting to then-U.S. President Richard Nixon. Critics complained it destroyed forever the mystique of royal life.

Displaying the regal calm which would come to typify her reign, the queen showed little panic July 9, 1982, when Michael Fagan, a mentally disturbed petty criminal, climbed up a drain pipe and broke into her bedroom. Unruffled, the queen sat the 31-year-old down at the end of her bed and chatted to him for around 10 minutes until police arrived. The queen showed similar cool in 1981, when a young man aimed a pistol at her as she paraded on horseback and fired six blank cartridges.

The queen’s biggest stumbling point with the public was in 1997, when Diana, the popular, extravagantly emotional former wife of the queen’s son Charles, was killed in a Paris car crash. While the country erupted in a show of overt mourning, the royal family, secluded at Balmoral Castle, at first refused to fly the flags at Buckingham Palace at half-staff because that was not the protocol.

Belatedly, the queen made a sober television address and joined the mourners, letting it be known that she had remained in Scotland to care for Diana’s children, William and Harry.

When the queen embarked in May on the first of a series of Diamond Jubilee tours of Britain’s provinces — not quite the distant outposts of empire of Victoria’s day — she took with her the newly minted duchess, as if to finally lay to rest Diana’s ghost.

Elizabeth has presided over the shrinkage of the realm, virtually to a core. Since she became queen, Elizabeth has, in her words, “treated” with 12 prime ministers who have guided — or misguided — the land from the postwar days of rationing, austerity and deference to a modern state of dwindling prosperity, austerity and nostalgia for global influence that has long been supplanted by the United States.(SD-Agencies)

SAYING she was touched and humbled by “countless kindnesses” shown to her, Queen Elizabeth II wound up a spectacular and closely scripted four-day celebration of her 60 years as monarch Tuesday, seeming buoyed by an outpouring of support that is likely to cement her family’s place in British society for years to come.

The queen, who is 86, completed the extravaganza with an address broadcast to the nation.

“The events that I have attended to mark my diamond jubilee have been a humbling experience,” she said in the address, which lasted less than two minutes. “It has touched me deeply to see so many thousands of families, neighbors and friends celebrating together in such a happy atmosphere.”

She added: “I hope that the memories of all this year’s happy events will brighten our lives for many years to come. I will continue to treasure and draw inspiration from the countless kindnesses shown to me in this country and throughout the Commonwealth,” she said, referring to the association of nations with historical links to Britain (mainly former colonies) that she formally heads.

The celebrations, with public holidays giving Britons a four-day break, included a dramatic pageant of 1,000 vessels on the River Thames through London on Sunday, a concert outside Buckingham Palace on Monday and a day of reverence and pageantry Tuesday.

The only departure from the tight choreography of the events was the illness of Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth’s 90-year-old husband, who was taken to a hospital Monday after spending hours in the biting cold atop the royal barge during the Thames procession June 3.

In Prince Philip’s absence, the queen attended events alone or with other close family members. Riding in an open carriage through central London on Tuesday with crowds lining the streets, she was accompanied by her eldest son and heir, Prince Charles, and his second wife, Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall. The prince’s sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, followed in another open carriage with Prince William’s wife, the former Kate Middleton, now the Duchess of Cambridge.

In the finale to the jubilee, hundreds of thousands of people crammed the Mall, the broad avenue leading from Trafalgar Square to Buckingham Palace, lofting British union flags and bright umbrellas against a spattering of rain, to await the queen’s appearance on the palace’s central balcony. For a better view, one held up a cardboard periscope emblazoned with the words “Thanks for the day off.”

Much of the official praise for the queen has cited what has been described as her dedication to public service.

In a sermon that she attended Tuesday at St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, inveighed against “the traps of ludicrous financial greed, of environmental recklessness, of collective fear of strangers and collective contempt for the unsuccessful and marginal.”

But referring to the queen, he said: “We are marking today the anniversary of one historic and very public act of dedication — a dedication that has endured faithfully, calmly and generously through most of the adult lives of most of us here. We are marking six decades of living proof that public service is possible, and that it is a place where happiness can be found.”

Born April 21, 1926, the queen has seen the British Empire transformed from a pre-eminent world power into a commonwealth of 54 independent states, of which she is the figurehead. She is also the queen of 16 realms, including the United Kingdom, and a nominal leader of 2 billion subjects, nearly a third of the world’s population.

Considered friendly and funny in private, the queen has a formal, remote air in public that some people attribute to shyness and others say is a reflection of her belief that, as monarch, she should comport herself with dignity and restraint.

Growing up, Elizabeth was tutored privately. She fell in love with her future consort, Prince Philip, when she was 13 and married him eight years later. They have four children and eight grandchildren.

Then aged 25, Princess Elizabeth became queen when she was told of the death of her father, King George VI, on Feb. 6, 1952, while staying at the Treetops Hotel in Kenya.

Queen Elizabeth II was crowned in a solemn ceremony June 2, 1953, at London’s Westminster Abbey. Crowds lined up across London to see the queen travel to and from the ceremony, while an estimated 20 million watched on television, after the new monarch requested the event be broadcast as the first televised coronation.

It was the first of many royal spectacles that have marked her reign, including the so-called “fairy tale’’ marriage of her son Charles to Princess Diana, the messy family spats that surrounded their divorce and an outpouring of public disapproval against the queen after Diana’s death.

As Britain shook off the era of wartime austerity and strict social codes during the 1960s — the decade of swinging London, the Beatles and a lifestyle revolution — the queen brought change to the monarchy. In 1969, she authorized the first television documentary about her life, which featured unguarded footage of the Duke of Edinburgh cooking sausages on a barbeque and the queen chatting to then-U.S. President Richard Nixon. Critics complained it destroyed forever the mystique of royal life.

Displaying the regal calm which would come to typify her reign, the queen showed little panic July 9, 1982, when Michael Fagan, a mentally disturbed petty criminal, climbed up a drain pipe and broke into her bedroom. Unruffled, the queen sat the 31-year-old down at the end of her bed and chatted to him for around 10 minutes until police arrived. The queen showed similar cool in 1981, when a young man aimed a pistol at her as she paraded on horseback and fired six blank cartridges.

The queen’s biggest stumbling point with the public was in 1997, when Diana, the popular, extravagantly emotional former wife of the queen’s son Charles, was killed in a Paris car crash. While the country erupted in a show of overt mourning, the royal family, secluded at Balmoral Castle, at first refused to fly the flags at Buckingham Palace at half-staff because that was not the protocol.

Belatedly, the queen made a sober television address and joined the mourners, letting it be known that she had remained in Scotland to care for Diana’s children, William and Harry.

When the queen embarked in May on the first of a series of Diamond Jubilee tours of Britain’s provinces — not quite the distant outposts of empire of Victoria’s day — she took with her the newly minted duchess, as if to finally lay to rest Diana’s ghost.

Elizabeth has presided over the shrinkage of the realm, virtually to a core. Since she became queen, Elizabeth has, in her words, “treated” with 12 prime ministers who have guided — or misguided — the land from the postwar days of rationing, austerity and deference to a modern state of dwindling prosperity, austerity and nostalgia for global influence that has long been supplanted by the United States.(SD-Agencies)

SAYING she was touched and humbled by “countless kindnesses” shown to her, Queen Elizabeth II wound up a spectacular and closely scripted four-day celebration of her 60 years as monarch Tuesday, seeming buoyed by an outpouring of support that is likely to cement her family’s place in British society for years to come.

The queen, who is 86, completed the extravaganza with an address broadcast to the nation.

“The events that I have attended to mark my diamond jubilee have been a humbling experience,” she said in the address, which lasted less than two minutes. “It has touched me deeply to see so many thousands of families, neighbors and friends celebrating together in such a happy atmosphere.”

She added: “I hope that the memories of all this year’s happy events will brighten our lives for many years to come. I will continue to treasure and draw inspiration from the countless kindnesses shown to me in this country and throughout the Commonwealth,” she said, referring to the association of nations with historical links to Britain (mainly former colonies) that she formally heads.

The celebrations, with public holidays giving Britons a four-day break, included a dramatic pageant of 1,000 vessels on the River Thames through London on Sunday, a concert outside Buckingham Palace on Monday and a day of reverence and pageantry Tuesday.

The only departure from the tight choreography of the events was the illness of Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth’s 90-year-old husband, who was taken to a hospital Monday after spending hours in the biting cold atop the royal barge during the Thames procession June 3.

In Prince Philip’s absence, the queen attended events alone or with other close family members. Riding in an open carriage through central London on Tuesday with crowds lining the streets, she was accompanied by her eldest son and heir, Prince Charles, and his second wife, Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall. The prince’s sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, followed in another open carriage with Prince William’s wife, the former Kate Middleton, now the Duchess of Cambridge.

In the finale to the jubilee, hundreds of thousands of people crammed the Mall, the broad avenue leading from Trafalgar Square to Buckingham Palace, lofting British union flags and bright umbrellas against a spattering of rain, to await the queen’s appearance on the palace’s central balcony. For a better view, one held up a cardboard periscope emblazoned with the words “Thanks for the day off.”

Much of the official praise for the queen has cited what has been described as her dedication to public service.

In a sermon that she attended Tuesday at St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, inveighed against “the traps of ludicrous financial greed, of environmental recklessness, of collective fear of strangers and collective contempt for the unsuccessful and marginal.”

But referring to the queen, he said: “We are marking today the anniversary of one historic and very public act of dedication — a dedication that has endured faithfully, calmly and generously through most of the adult lives of most of us here. We are marking six decades of living proof that public service is possible, and that it is a place where happiness can be found.”

Born April 21, 1926, the queen has seen the British Empire transformed from a pre-eminent world power into a commonwealth of 54 independent states, of which she is the figurehead. She is also the queen of 16 realms, including the United Kingdom, and a nominal leader of 2 billion subjects, nearly a third of the world’s population.

Considered friendly and funny in private, the queen has a formal, remote air in public that some people attribute to shyness and others say is a reflection of her belief that, as monarch, she should comport herself with dignity and restraint.

Growing up, Elizabeth was tutored privately. She fell in love with her future consort, Prince Philip, when she was 13 and married him eight years later. They have four children and eight grandchildren.

Then aged 25, Princess Elizabeth became queen when she was told of the death of her father, King George VI, on Feb. 6, 1952, while staying at the Treetops Hotel in Kenya.

Queen Elizabeth II was crowned in a solemn ceremony June 2, 1953, at London’s Westminster Abbey. Crowds lined up across London to see the queen travel to and from the ceremony, while an estimated 20 million watched on television, after the new monarch requested the event be broadcast as the first televised coronation.

It was the first of many royal spectacles that have marked her reign, including the so-called “fairy tale’’ marriage of her son Charles to Princess Diana, the messy family spats that surrounded their divorce and an outpouring of public disapproval against the queen after Diana’s death.

As Britain shook off the era of wartime austerity and strict social codes during the 1960s — the decade of swinging London, the Beatles and a lifestyle revolution — the queen brought change to the monarchy. In 1969, she authorized the first television documentary about her life, which featured unguarded footage of the Duke of Edinburgh cooking sausages on a barbeque and the queen chatting to then-U.S. President Richard Nixon. Critics complained it destroyed forever the mystique of royal life.

Displaying the regal calm which would come to typify her reign, the queen showed little panic July 9, 1982, when Michael Fagan, a mentally disturbed petty criminal, climbed up a drain pipe and broke into her bedroom. Unruffled, the queen sat the 31-year-old down at the end of her bed and chatted to him for around 10 minutes until police arrived. The queen showed similar cool in 1981, when a young man aimed a pistol at her as she paraded on horseback and fired six blank cartridges.

The queen’s biggest stumbling point with the public was in 1997, when Diana, the popular, extravagantly emotional former wife of the queen’s son Charles, was killed in a Paris car crash. While the country erupted in a show of overt mourning, the royal family, secluded at Balmoral Castle, at first refused to fly the flags at Buckingham Palace at half-staff because that was not the protocol.

Belatedly, the queen made a sober television address and joined the mourners, letting it be known that she had remained in Scotland to care for Diana’s children, William and Harry.

When the queen embarked in May on the first of a series of Diamond Jubilee tours of Britain’s provinces — not quite the distant outposts of empire of Victoria’s day — she took with her the newly minted duchess, as if to finally lay to rest Diana’s ghost.

Elizabeth has presided over the shrinkage of the realm, virtually to a core. Since she became queen, Elizabeth has, in her words, “treated” with 12 prime ministers who have guided — or misguided — the land from the postwar days of rationing, austerity and deference to a modern state of dwindling prosperity, austerity and nostalgia for global influence that has long been supplanted by the United States.(SD-Agencies)